Biodiversity conservation policies alter the solution space of climate mitigation scenarios
Abstract
Conserving biodiversity while mitigating climate change is one of the defining sustainability challenges of this century. Paris-aligned mitigation pathways rely heavily on forest restoration and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). While forest restoration can simultaneously enhance wildlife habitat and increase carbon sequestration, large-scale biomass production for BECCS may intensify land competition and conflict with biodiversity conservation goals. Here, we use an interlinked land-use (MAgPIE), energy (MESSAGEix), and climate (MAGICC) modeling framework to explore the synergies and trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation. We find that sustainable bioenergy potential compatible with ambitious biodiversity conservation targets is below 100 EJ/yr, limiting late-century carbon removal through BECCS in 2 °C scenarios to less than 6 GtCO₂/yr. At the same time, ambitious biodiversity conservation can approximately double carbon sequestration in forest systems. Our results show that Paris temperature goals remain achievable under ambitious biodiversity targets and that peak temperatures are lowered as much as 0.2°C compared to Paris-aligned scenarios without biodiversity targets, although doing so requires earlier and more stringent decarbonization.
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BibTeX
@misc{steinhauser2026biodiversity,
title = {{Biodiversity conservation policies alter the solution space of climate mitigation scenarios}},
author = {Jan Steinhauser and Keywan Riahi and Sreyam Sengupta and Jan Philipp Dietrich and Florian Maczek and Patrick von Jeetze and Oliver Fricko and Di Sheng and Florian Humpenöder and Volker Krey and Michael Obersteiner and Alexander Popp},
howpublished = {EarthArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.31223/x5wf80},
url = {https://eartharxiv.org/repository/view/14858/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Biodiversity conservation policies alter the solution space of climate mitigation scenarios
AU - Jan Steinhauser
AU - Keywan Riahi
AU - Sreyam Sengupta
AU - Jan Philipp Dietrich
AU - Florian Maczek
AU - Patrick von Jeetze
AU - Oliver Fricko
AU - Di Sheng
AU - Florian Humpenöder
AU - Volker Krey
AU - Michael Obersteiner
AU - Alexander Popp
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/08
PB - EarthArXiv
DO - 10.31223/x5wf80
UR - https://eartharxiv.org/repository/view/14858/
AB - Conserving biodiversity while mitigating climate change is one of the defining sustainability challenges of this century. Paris-aligned mitigation pathways rely heavily on forest restoration and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). While forest restoration can simultaneously enhance wildlife habitat and increase carbon sequestration, large-scale biomass production for BECCS may intensify land competition and conflict with biodiversity conservation goals. Here, we use an interlinked land-use (MAgPIE), energy (MESSAGEix), and climate (MAGICC) modeling framework to explore the synergies and trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation. We find that sustainable bioenergy potential compatible with ambitious biodiversity conservation targets is below 100 EJ/yr, limiting late-century carbon removal through BECCS in 2 °C scenarios to less than 6 GtCO₂/yr. At the same time, ambitious biodiversity conservation can approximately double carbon sequestration in forest systems. Our results show that Paris temperature goals remain achievable under ambitious biodiversity targets and that peak temperatures are lowered as much as 0.2°C compared to Paris-aligned scenarios without biodiversity targets, although doing so requires earlier and more stringent decarbonization.
ER -